Kazuhisa Makita watched five relievers trot to the mound on opening day. The phone rang right away for him Friday night for his major league debut. He was grateful.

“Maybe yesterday was a little more nerve-wracking,” the 33-year-old reliever said through interpreter Kenji Aoshima after tossing 1 1/3 scoreless innings in Friday’s 8-6 loss to the Brewers. “Today, not at all. When I got the word right away, I was ready to jump in.”

Makita made quick work of the opposition.

The Japanese import threw nine of his 13 pitches for strikes, including just two in dispatching Domingo Santana with two outs and runners on first and third in the fifth inning.

Milwaukee’s right fielder, to that point, had squared up left-handers Clayton Richard and Joey Lucchesi fairly consistently through the first two games of the season. The submarining Makita offered a vastly different look in sneaking a 79 mph fastball past him to start the at-bat and getting a soft grounder to shortstop with the next.

“We were trying to show him something he hadn’t seen,” Padres manager Andy Green said. “You want to get a righty in there and you want to give him an anomaly look and see if you can’t take advantage of him that way.”

Manny Pina flied out to right to start the sixth. After a full-count walk to pinch-hitter Eric Thames, Makita fetched an inning-ending double play off the bat of Orlando Arcia.

Neither the stadium gun nor MLB.com’s Gameday app picked up the velocity on the one uber-slow curve that he flashed Friday night, with Makita shaking off catcher Austin Hedges to get to the pitch. The offering, typically a mid-50s breaking ball, missed the strike zone.

Makita featured that pitch more frequently this spring – Green even surmised he might have been playing to the oohs and ahs of the Arizona crowds at times – but the rookie reliever expects to attack hitters with the fastball that rises from the dirt.

“It’s getting some swings and misses,” he said.

Makita was in line for the win until the Brewers rallied for five runs in the ninth.

“I felt really good today,” he said. “I think I did well on the mound.”